The present invention relates to estimating arterial parameters of a patient based on medical image data and clinical measurements, and more particularly, to estimating arterial compliance and resistance from 4D cardiac images and pressure measurements.
Estimation of artery compliance and resistance can provide key information on the systemic pulmonic resistance of a patient. From a clinical point of view, artery resistance parameters can be used to quantify hypertension effects on heart failure. Hypertension is a risk factor for the development of heart failure, as it increases cardiac work, thus leading to the development of left ventricular hypertrophy. Consequently, it is desirable to lower systemic vascular resistance in order to reduce blood pressure in both the population affected by heart failure and the normal population.
In current clinical practice, the parameters of arterial compliance and resistance are typically estimated invasively based on invasive pressure measurements acquired during cardiac catheterization using an empirical law. More sophisticated methods for estimating these parameters based on inverse modeling have also been proposed. However, such methods require measurements of blood flow and pressure to be acquired simultaneously, which is difficult to achieve.